INTRO: Scientists for years have been trying to learn why populations
of Alaska's Steller sea lions are crashing in western parts of the state.
Near the small fishing town of Kodiak, scientists are teaming up to
study the ecosystem that supports sea lions. Doug Schneider has more,
in this week's Arctic Science Journeys Radio.

STORY: Local fishing boat captain Dave Kubiak eases his 44-foot
boat, the Mythos, into the calm waters of the lee side of Cape
Chiniak. Here, a cluster of rocky outcroppings serve as a Steller
sea
lion haul-out, a few miles from the fishing community of Kodiak, on
Alaska's Kodiak Island.

KUBIAK: "Give us a few seconds to drift around. Let the wind establish where we're going to sit before we drop anchor."

Cutting the engines, another sound replaces the drone of the Mythos' diesel engine.

Groaning and bellowing, Steller sea lions lie sprawled on the rocks just yards
from the boat. Tired from feeding in the nearby Gulf of Alaska, the sea lions
haul themselves out to rest on this and other sites around the island to rest.
While it seems like there are a lot of sea lions here, there should be more.
Since the 1960s, Steller sea lion populations in the western half of Alaska,
roughly from Prince William Sound through the Aleutian Islands, have declined
some 80 percent. Where once this region, spanning some 1,500 miles, teamed
with hundreds of thousands of sea lions, just a few thousand remain today.

Scientists trying to find the cause of the crash believe young sea lions are
most at risk to starvation, predation, and other factors. Here at Cape
Chiniak, sea lions appear healthy as they come and go from the rocks.

Brenda Konar is a marine ecologist and research diver at the University
of Alaska Fairbanks. She and a team of scuba divers have come to learn
why sea lions prefer specific sites as haul-outs. To answer that, she
and her divers need to know what there is for sea lions to eat beneath
the waves that constantly pound this and other sea lion haul-outs around
the island.

KONAR: "We're curious as to whether there are fish available for the youngsters
really near to shore. The small Stellers apparently feed and learn how to forage
near to shore. So we want to see if there are fish available for them in these
nearshore habitats. We also want to compare the nearshore areas with the offshore
areas to see if there are similar fish or fewer fish or more fish."

Konar and other divers conduct a kind of inventory of marine life; swimming along
the bottom, recording the plants, the fish, even the small crabs and other
invertebrates, that live near the island's seven sea lion haul-outs. Some of
the dives are as deep as 100 feet, where the frigid 39-degree water and the
increased pressure means divers can spend only about 20 minutes on the bottom.

KONAR: "We go down at the given depth and we lay out three 30-meter transect
lines, and the fish person counts all the fish along the corridor on that transect
line
on the bottom, and then coming back in the mid-water. And then is the benthic
person assessing habitat. She's actually counting and identifying different algae
and invertebrates and different types of shell debris or cobble, these types
of things."

All this data will help Konar and other scientists construct a picture of
what life is like for young sea lions learning to forage and fend for
themselves. What kinds of fish live near these haul-outs? Do sea lions
feed close to haul-outs or do the venture further away? Is there even
enough food available to sea lions in these places? And how do these
conditions change throughout the year?

Steller
sea lions rest on their rocky haul-out at Cape Chiniak, on Alaska's
Kodiak Island. Scientists are studying the undersea habitat around
sea lion haul-outs to see if young sea lions have enough to eat.
Click on the photo for a larger image. (Photo courtesy Dave Kubiak.)

Konar's research is a small but important part of a much larger effort
by university scientists such as Bob Foy, Kate Wynne and Loren Buck
to characterize the entire marine ecosystem around the island. The seabirds,
the large commercial fish stocks offshore, the whales, the seals, and
the complex food web and oceanography that supports these species all
are targets of intense research. It's all part of an ambitious project
called the Gulf Apex Predator program. Kate Wynne is a marine mammal
specialist with the Alaska Sea Grant Program in Kodiak.

WYNNE: "You ask any of us what we want to get at, and they'll all be different.
Bob has his own fish questions. The kelp people have their own nearshore questions. I have sea lion questions. The beauty of this is that
we are helping each other answer these questions. My particular questions
are trying to figure out who's eating what here, and why for instance
are harbor seals increasing in number while Stellers are declining?
Why are the whales doing really well? Why do they shift in a certain
time frame, and are the Stellers doing the same thing?"

Answers to all these questions won't come easy. For the divers, this
is their second trip to these haul-outs. Last summer, divers saw numerous
fish within the jumble of kelp beds that surround Chiniak and other
haul-outs. But on this trip done during the winter, divers saw only
a few fish. That could be because area kelp beds are dormant right now.
Kate Wynne says sea lions might have to look harder and venture further
in winter to find enough food to eat.

WYNNE: "I think they go where the food is. The ones that have had
transmitters put on them will dabble around these haul-outs, which is
why we're interested in what's available. But when these pups of last
summer start foraging on their own, in April or May, they start going
out to the canyon edges, at around 100 meters, which is further offshore.
But if you're at Chiniak, that isn't that far. It'd be a good spot to
be a pup."

Arctic Science Journeys is a radio service highlighting science, culture,
and the environment of the circumpolar north. Produced by the Alaska Sea
Grant College Program and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The shortcut
to our ASJ news home page is www.asjnews.org.